1920s-1960s Joseph “Doc” Stacher (né Gdale Oistaczer)* was a New Jersey-based Mobster who made his foray into organized crime with Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and Meyer Lansky’s Bugs and Meyer Mob in Manhattan, N.Y. and then with Abner “Longie” Zwillman’s Third Ward Gang in Newark, N.J. Eventually, he teamed up with local Mobsters, including Zwillman and…
1971 Actress Jane Fonda and renowned activists led about 900 people down the Las Vegas Strip on March 6, 1971, a Saturday, in protest of welfare cutbacks. “Today we launched a spring offensive and a national campaign against repression,” said participating civil rights leader Rev. Ralph Abernathy (Reno Evening Gazette, March 8, 1971). Starting…
1953 The Sands hotel-casino in Las Vegas, Nevada offered craps not poolside but in the pool! Photo from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’ Digital Collections
1956 The gambling licensees of the Dunes and Silver Slipper casinos applied to restart bingo on the premises, but the Nevada Gaming Commission denied their request, stating that the return of the game to the Las Vegas Strip would be detrimental to the area. This was because in prior years when bingo had been permitted, the…
1950 Las Vegas spent $750,000 a year on advertising (about $7.5 million today). The Chamber of Commerce promoted the town as: “An oasis for the harassed refugees from artificial restraints and laws of other states.“ Photo from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, University Libraries’ Digital Collections
1957-1959 During Nevada’s 1957 legislature, State Senator Kenneth Johnson (R-Ormsby), voiced his concerns about some of the state’s gambling licensees* simultaneously co-owning Cuban casinos. He feared that: • Nevada licensees might form alliances with U.S. Mobsters in Havana, who primarily ran gambling there • Nevada licensees might use those relationships to hide Mob interests in…
1968 Howard Hughes, billionaire industrialist, received the Nevada Gaming Commission’s blessing to buy the Stardust hotel-casino in Las Vegas, Nevada for $30.5 million and moved forward with the acquisition. He already owned five such properties on the Strip — the Castaways, Silver Slipper, Frontier, Sands and Desert Inn. (Adding the Stardust would’ve given him control…
1967 & 1970 Apparently, the beloved crooner Frank Sinatra, Sr. had a temper, which he sometimes unleashed when casino operators denied him additional, excessive amounts of credit when gambling. In one instance when Sinatra lost control, he wound up losing two front teeth. That was in 1967, when he provoked a fight with Carl Cohen,…
1956 As revelers welcomed the new year at the Sands in Las Vegas, Nevada, management gave every guest (an estimated 18,000 of them) a brand new silver dollar. Additionally, they gifted each of the 700 women in the showroom a satin bag filled with 25 silver dollars. That’s a total giveaway of $35,500 (a $311,000 value…